


A Deep Need to Be Needed, Necessary

by MrsCalculation



Series: You Know Where to Find Me [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Identity Issues, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2018-12-09 06:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11663097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsCalculation/pseuds/MrsCalculation
Summary: The first time he sees him, he’s sitting alone in a pub, thinking that maybe, just maybe, he’s alive after all. He sees a shadow of a man who looks just like him but somehow dirtier, even more destroyed, and altogether more terrifying. No one else in the pub pays much attention to him as he seats himself alone with an already-empty glass.Bucky doesn't fall from the train but dies with Schmidt on the Valkyrie.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, all! I'm back! I hope you don't mind the delay there's been between parts in the series. If you haven't read the first part of this series, I definitely recommend you do that first.  
> Time for Bucky point of view! I'm warning you that the end of this chapter gets a little hard to follow because of a weird change in narration style that I will explain in the end note, so maybe check that out!

Bucky thinks he’s dead when Steve comes to save him. He had assumed he was dead long ago, but no, apparently they had kept him alive long enough for the whole factory to blow, and in the moment of death where his whole life flashed before his eyes, he saw a life they never lived: Steve, tall and healthy as he should have been, saving Bucky this time with a look of undeniable adoration in his eyes.

Bucky had never been one to believe in heaven, especially not with this war, but God, he _hopes_ that’s what he’s seeing. He hopes that when he gets to heaven Steve will be there, as strong as his stupid fuckin’ spirit that got their asses beat so many times, he hopes he puts his arms around Bucky and says his name like he's a miracle.

It isn't that Steve is huge and warm and holding onto him that makes Bucky realize he's not dead. It isn't even that Steve shouldn't be dead, shouldn't be in heaven, should be safe back home. _Home._ It's that Bucky knows he'll never get into heaven, that he is no one's miracle. Not after what he's done.

He decides if anything he died when he was sick in that stupid fuckin’ cage. When they took him out for solitary experimental torture was his purgatory, and now, watching the devil himself rip off his human costume, seeing his fucking torturer eying him cautiously, seeing Steve fucking jump across an abyss of flames—this is hell.

Bucky should have known that their survival only meant worse things to come.

 

The first time he sees himself, he’s sitting alone in a pub, waiting for Steve to get back from talking to the boys. He’s finally started to come to terms with what he’s seen, thinking that maybe, just _maybe_ , he’s alive after all, when he sees a shadow of a man who looks just like him but somehow dirtier, even more destroyed, and altogether more terrifying than he is. His hair is just barely longer than Bucky’s, unkempt like no one had bothered to teach the man to wash his hair in his life. He doesn’t look clean, but he looks put together, in a dark grey ensemble that looks like it’s hiding the man and his weapons. His gait seems lopsided, like he isn’t used to walking under his own weight. No one else in the pub pays much attention to him as he seats himself alone with an already-empty glass.

Steve comes in then, about to ask Bucky to make another horrible decision, and when Bucky looks around the pub again, he’s gone.

 

He looks himself in the eye while adjusting his position in his nest. He’s confused at first, because that's the face he sees in the mirror when he bothers to look anymore, dead-eyed and sallow-cheeked and all. But the hair is just noticeably longer, and the stubble on the not-him’s jaw is more noticeable than it is on his own reflection. The not-him hadn’t touched a razor for at least a week, it seems.

Or at least, not one for shaving.

“Fuck,” Bucky hisses out, thinking it’s just his luck that he would distractedly think _maybe he doesn’t know how to use a blade_ the exact second the guy goes to swipe at him.

Bucky shifts again in his nest, just out of the way of where they guy was going to stab him in the fucking neck, and slides back down, landing unsteadily on the branch he had used to hoist himself up a moment ago. He’s too far away for anyone to notice he’s not in position, meaning he’s also too far away to call for help or warn the others without bringing any other hostiles in on them. He grabs onto a branch in front of him and swings himself to the ground, then runs towards the others.

The not-him is a bit slower than Bucky is, weighed down in a way Bucky doesn’t understand, and Bucky had a head start, so he’s just close enough to call out “Jim!” as he spots Morita before the not-him tackles Bucky to the ground, heavy and far stronger than Bucky. Bucky rolls and squirms just out of the way of the not-him’s knife, getting stabbed through the bicep instead of the chest. He shifts up and headbutts the not-him before he can get another better shot in, and suddenly the not-him is up, running back the way they came.

Morita is sliding to his knees by Bucky’s wounded arm when Bucky hears boots crunching on snow, knowing it’s Steve by the way his feet strike the earth. It had hardly taken any adjusting for Bucky to pick up on Steve’s cues again. Steve is heavier now, but try as Bucky may to hide it, Bucky can’t deny that it’s easier to pick up subtle differences that he wasn’t able to before. He tries not to think too much about that.

“Bucky,” Steve says when he arrives, barely above a whisper but panic evident in his voice.

“‘M fine, just a scratch,” Bucky says, even though he couldn’t even prop himself up to lean against a tree without Morita’s help.

“We have to move, Cap, the guy who got him got away,” Morita says. “We gotta get the guys and get out of here, they knew we were coming.”

“Dernier is already in,” Steve says. “He got past them no problem, we didn’t see any signs.” He cuts off abruptly. “Did you get a look at him?” he asks Bucky.

“No,” Bucky grits out, lying and in pain as he tears at his coat to get to the wound, hoping Morita won’t be able to tell how bad it is so that he doesn’t question why he’s fully healed a few days later when Bucky _knows_ he should be limited for weeks.

“Captain,” Morita says again, “we have to _move_.”

Bucky is mighty pissed that Steve decides to pick him up and run.

“What the fuck, Steve, put me down, my legs are fine,” Bucky says as Steve somehow manages to run without jostling him.

“And you can’t run through one hundred yards of snow-covered forest as well as I can on your best day,” Steve says. Bucky shuts up but remembers something.

He left his rifle at his nest. “Steve,” he says just as Steve stops, leaning Bucky against a tree and running on ahead to where Bucky knows Jones, Dugan, and Falsworth are stationed. “Fuck,” he says to himself.

Morita is there a second later, clearly frustrated with Steve for taking off without warning, but he doesn’t say anything about it. Bucky rolls his eyes at him and Morita nods, looking almost smug until Bucky tries to move and catches himself hissing in pain. He knows he’ll be fine, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t fuckin’ _sting_.

“Stop, let me get it,” Morita says as Bucky starts trying to peel away his clothes and get to the wound on his own again. “Could’ve at least lemme see it,” he mutters to himself as he kneels to Bucky’s side, clearly upset at Steve’s overreaction.

By the time the wound is patched to Morita’s satisfaction, Steve is running back to them. “We can’t see him,” he tells them, “but we’re going to move forward to try to get him out and get out of here as quickly as possible. Can you walk?”

Bucky can feel Morita’s suppressed eye roll next to him. “Yes, _Cap_ , I can walk.”

In the few seconds it takes for them to set sight on the base, Dernier has reappeared. They watch as he takes down one sentry, so they see the moment that the other realizes something’s wrong. Steve freezes next to him, and Bucky feels numb as he leans against the nearest tree for equilibrium, knowing that if he weren’t down, if he’d managed to take the not-him out, if _any_ of this had gone according to plan he would have taken these guys out before Dernier even had to. He closes his eyes with the weight of his guilt, lost in how sick it is that he would have been content to kill two if it meant saving one of his.

His eyes snap open when he hears Dernier’s distinctive timbre giving their signal. _They’re clear._

Steve looks to him and Bucky gestures his confusion. He didn’t do it and there’s no way he could have, but he was the one who was supposed to take these guys down in the first place. But no, he’s standing right here next to Steve and Morita and not in his nest, yet Dernier is still okay.

Steve gives his orders and proceeds with the plan, leaving Bucky and Morita to find the sniper. Bucky doesn’t tell Morita about the not-him, and they don’t find him anyway.

 

The last time Bucky sees himself, he's on a train and knows that he's going to die, that _Steve_ is going to die, if Bucky can't cover them. He's dangerously close to the giant hole in the train and knows full well what he's doing. If he doesn't make this shot, he's falling to his death with Steve not far behind, either thrown out of the train by this giant suit of armor or trying to save Bucky on his way down.

Bucky doesn’t have time to think about how he’s going to fucking _kill_ Steve if Steve dies trying to save him because there he is, the stupid not-him clad this time in all black and with a mask on. Somehow Bucky just _knows_ it’s the not-him despite the full-face mask — there’s something about the way he stalks towards Bucky that feels like seeing himself in those stupid reels that the army keeps making. The not-him has swung into the train and distracted the guy in the armor, but unfortunately distracted Bucky as well. The second he has the realization that it’s the not-him, Bucky feels Steve’s shield torn from his grasp and is pushed forward with an inhumanly strong shove, struggling to keep his balance until he feels the sharp pain of a bullet through his hip. He sees the guy in armor crumple before he’s face down.

He hears Steve shout and tries to resettle himself, making sure not to twist his hips any more than necessary, but not bothering to tend to the wound. He looks around for either the armor or the not-him, but both are gone. Instead he sees Steve coming towards him from that hole in the train. Bucky stares out and watches the snowy mountains fly past, hardly feeling the sting of cold air on his skin making his eyes water.

Steve rips off a piece of Bucky's pant leg that isn't covered in blood and widens the hole the bullet made. He presses down on the wound with the now-soiled cloth. He sounds like he's trying but failing to keep his breathing steady.

Jesus Christ, it isn't like he was the one who was shot. “I’m fine, Steve, it’s straight through, just help me up,” Bucky says, trying to get Steve’s hand off his hip so he can stand up. Bucky is actually impressed at how calm he sounds, but it backfires.

Steve hoists him up, and okay, maybe Bucky can't quite walk this time, but he's getting really sick of Steve carrying him around like a ragdoll. Steve pushes forward into the train and sets Bucky down on one of the giant crates stacked in the car.

“Keep pressure on it, okay?” Steve says like Bucky is some kind of idiot. “I'll be back as soon as I find Gabe, stay here.” Yeah, like Bucky can go anywhere. Steve has set him down in as comfortable a position he can considering the wound and Bucky really doesn't want to make it worse.

But then Steve is draping his shield across Bucky's thighs and pulling out his handguns, placing them carefully next to Bucky. “Steve, what the fuck,” he says, trying to grab at Steve before he runs off. “Steve, take the fuckin’ shield! Rogers, get your ass back here!” Steve is through the next door already. “Rogers, you fucking idiot! Rogers!”

Bucky doesn't panic at being alone, not really. He's concerned that the not-him will come back, but he's more worried about what happens if the not-him gets to Steve. Steve wouldn't fight him, not if he looks like Bucky, and he has no defense because he left the shield with Bucky like the idiot he is.

Bucky is distracting himself by trying to contain the bleeding when Steve gets back. Somehow he doesn't cower under Bucky's glare, so Bucky decides to yell instead.

“What the fuck, Steve, you can’t just leave me like that when there’s a fucking maniac who just fucking shot me around!”  
Steve doesn't flinch. “We’ll worry about that later,” he says as he picks Bucky up again. Bucky tries to protest, but there isn't much else he can do besides hold the shield to defend them both the best he can.

Steve and heads to the extraction point, and Bucky worries about how to tell him that his own face is trying to kill them.

 

He never gets the chance.

Bucky is in medical for his wound the whole week before their next strike, recovering more from his interactions with Zola than the wound itself.

“Sergeant Barnes,” Zola had breathed out in shock upon seeing Bucky in Steve's arms. He eyed Bucky curiously and warily, looking at the way he held the shield to guard Steve while Steve tried to keep Bucky away.

“My trials were successful after all,” Zola had said, eyeing Bucky’s wound, as the rest of the team picked them up to return to base. Steve had immediately decked him. Zola had just laughed.

“Because he can do it,” Zola had said about Schmidt’s horrifying plans while Bucky sat in on his interrogation. “Our trials have already succeeded,” he said. His eyes violated Bucky.

Bucky stood, only faking his hobble somewhat as he headed towards the door and back to medical.

He had told Steve that he was fine to run on this mission. He knew Steve needed backup, and as much as he loved his team, he didn't trust them to watch Steve like Bucky always has. He has always needed to see Steve with his own eyes to know he's okay.

But part of Bucky's insistence had been selfish. He hadn't wanted to be anywhere near Zola, and he wanted to be the one to kill the sick fuck who had instructed Zola to torture God knows how many. At least this time he wouldn't have to carry the guilt of killing a _man_.

After watching Steve pull a ridiculous fuckin’ stunt with a bomber plane, Bucky had decided he'd had enough excitement for a lifetime but followed Steve into the cockpit anyway.

He isn't exactly regretting it now, but he is questioning how his life led him here.

Steve hasn't been able to keep Schmidt down long enough to do anything about the plane carrying mass amounts of explosives, and Schmidt has finally decided to end them both with his magical glowing cube of destruction. That seems to shoot out space. Great.

 _This is really it,_ Bucky thinks. _This is how I die_. And he tackles Schmidt.

As it turns out, it's far easier to knock a giant red skeleton on its ass than Bucky anticipated, so he has just enough of an advantage to wrap one arm around Schmidt’s neck while trying to knock the cube away with the opposite hand.

All he can think of as he reaches for the cube is how it's this shit that tortured, killed, destroyed so many men in ways the human mind isn't meant to understand. How if his own death can save even one person from suffering through the torture he did, it's worth it.

 _And here I thought Steve was the one not making it out alive_.

The instant his hand touches the cube, he screams as he rips through space.

 

* * *

 

It doesn't know where it is. It doesn't know how it knows this is wrong, but it does.

It cannot speak, though the others around it communicate. It cannot understand their words, but it can recognize the concepts obvious in their sounds. _Panic. Fear. Action. Violence._

It fights back.

There is a harsh bright thing, an _other_ , next to it, clearly experiencing pain. It does not know how it knows this, but it knows that it knows pain.

It looks at the harsh bright thing and it also feels rage. _Steve._ It gets the concept of _Steve_ , the concept of _pain_ , and knows that the Steve-concept should not experience the pain-concept. It knows that the _other_ has made the Steve-concept experience the pain-concept. It knows the harsh-bright-thing _other_ , _knows_ it, and though it is familiar, it is also _bad_. So it fights.

It attacks the other and knows that this is right if nothing else is. It stops attacking when the other does not move at all. It had not realized how still the room would be without the movement of the other.

It knows _panic_ when the rest attack. It had not known until now that it knew pain, and that it knew balance — or, at least, what it meant to _not_ know balance. It knows _fear_ when the bright attacks. It is a different bright, calm, but a bright that means violence.

It is but the one _it_ , and it cannot make the bright-calm-violence stop when there are so many bright-calm-violence makers and when it knows pain and not balance.

It experiences new pain as it is encircled, and it for the first time experiences memory. It has a purpose, but not this. It has been here before but did not stay. It was saved for a greater purpose.

Amongst the shouting it recognizes now as language, just as it realizes who it is and its purpose, it feels a cold pain to its head and experiences dark.

 _Better me than Steve_ , it thinks as it loses thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So who has read the Native Tongue series by Suzette Haden Elgin? The second book in the series has a few chapters narrated the way I wrote the ending. The point is to try to describe how a character who does not have language would describe their surroundings, which is pretty much impossible to do given that in order to describe something we must have some method of communication, i.e., language. If you've read the first part of this series you know that there's a little bit of stuff with languages in there, and I wanted to play around with how Bucky came to understanding those here. If it doesn't make sense, please let me know, but also don't worry too much because this is the only time narration will be that weird. I'll clear up any questions you have for sure, though!
> 
> I will admit this is unedited because I am tired and have been busy. If there are any major errors, point them out to me! I'll edit them soon.
> 
> As always, you can find me on tumblr at MrsCalculation!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first part of this chapter is the last of that weird narration style. It was heavy to write, it's heavy to read, and it won't serve any purpose after this point, so it's gone! Yay!

It wakes up still with no idea what or where it is. It understands, now, the world around it, but it doesn't know it.

It hears voices. Russian, it recognizes, but it does not know what the words are, just that there is a language it would understand and that this is not it.

Someone notices that it is awake and rushes over. It realizes it is experiencing pain again, intense, mostly on the left side of his body, and looks that way to find the source. It identifies the source of its not-balance from… earlier. It has no concept of how long it has been unconscious.

It hears voices again, one coming from the body prodding at it, and another from further away. The owner of the voice nearest it does something to its arm, the still-whole one, and it loses focus again.

 

It isn’t sure what’s happening when it wakes again, but it immediately feels a different sort of not-balance from before. Where it was light before is now heavy-numb.

“Sergeant Barnes,” it hears, and it startles at the memories it gets from the words. _Steve_ , it thinks.

A face comes into view, and it cowers away. “I am glad we have found you, Sergeant,” and these words it understands. It remembers this face, and pain, and being so angry. It remembers a mission in search of this face, and being freed, and it remembers.

“Steve,” it says. It isn’t the only word it knows, but it’s all it can manage.

The face curls disturbingly. It tries to move away, to make itself smaller, but it can’t. It has flattened itself to its place as much as it can and cannot seem to move otherwise. “I’m afraid not this time, Sergeant.”

The face moves forward, and from behind the face it hears more Russian. A Russian-speaking face comes into view. It is confused. The Russians were supposed to be allies. The first face is not an ally.

“You are to be the new fist of Hydra,” it hears as the Russian-speaking face begins to touch where it is now heavy-numb.

It knows the Russians are supposed to be allies, but it knows this “Sergeant Barnes”-speaking face is not, and it knows that Hydra is not. It forces heavy-numb to move, and with a glint of metal it is gripping, squeezing, lifting the Russian-speaking face.

It hears a commotion before everything is blurred.

 

It wakes up and is prepared for a mission. This is nothing new. It knows this, even if the process is different this time. It is told to surveil, and it does. It is told what to say and when, and it is given money. Somewhere it knows that this mission is not dangerous the way the others have been. But they have somehow taken anything that it _knows_ away, so it cannot say why it knows.

In the bar it observes. It sees a face ( _familiar_ , its mind whispers) alone in the crowd, looking unwell and on edge. It is glad, for reasons it does not know, that this face is not the primary target.

It moves, and it knows the face has noticed it now. It takes a seat, alone like the face, and watches.

The primary target arrives and sits next to the familiar face. For a moment, it cannot breathe. _Steve,_ its mind whispers, but it does not know a _Steve_. It was not fed that word in its script. It does not know what its mind is saying.

The familiar face forces a smile. It watches the primary target, the _Steve,_ turn and smile, much more genuinely, in return. It cannot do this anymore, and it was only meant to surveil, so it leaves with little to report back.

It goes back into the cold.

 

It thaws and immediately hears that it is to go into the cold again.

“Do you know this man?” an English-speaking face asks it. At the image, its mind fills with _Steve_ , but it does not know.

“No,” it says, its voice small and rough.

“This man is your target,” the English-speaking face says. “He is working with this team.” It looks at the files provided. “Take them all out if you have to, as long as you take out your primary target.”

It nods as it hears where it is to rendezvous in the events of mission success and mission failure. It does not think of mission failure as it stalks through the woods. The base it is stored in will be under attack. It chooses a tree, knowing that this is _the_ tree without knowing why, and waits.

It sees movement in the distance before it hears the targets. It knows to prepare, knife in hand, to take out the threat with the longest range. _Their sniper will be tricky,_ it had been told. _This is a trial. We will adjust for the future if necessary._

It does not want those adjustments. It will finish this the first time.

It slows its breathing as it hears the team come closer. It stops when it feels its tree rustle. It closes its eyes and counts the seconds, then reopens them when it knows it has two seconds to contact.

Upon witnessing the subtarget, it hesitates. It tilts its head in search for an explanation before it decides to attack. It fears its moment of hesitation is too much time wasted, so it strikes. The subtarget is surprisingly quick and avoids injury. However, in his haste to get away, the subtarget has left himself unarmed, his weaponry nestled into a clump of branches lower.

It forgoes the weapons for now, choosing instead to chase after the subtarget. It will have to take all of them out soon enough and it hopes this target will lead it to them all.

It tackles its subtarget just as he calls for help. It pins him and is swinging its arm down to stab him through the heart when the subtarget squirms just enough to avoid a chest shot. It pulls out the knife and prepares to attack again before another subtarget, already en route, arrives, when the subtarget fights back. The blow catches it off-guard, and it stumbles and stands to run away, doubling back to the tree it left, where it can take the sniper rifle left behind and scope out its targets.

From its new tree, it observes. It sees its primary target and hears that _word_ again, and instead of shooting the target, it can’t stop watching how he is so concerned for the subtarget, eventually picking him up and running to where he can keep him from harm.

It stops and thinks of a role reversal, though it doesn’t know why. The thoughts keep it from shooting the target. It wants to protect, seeing how the target protects the subtarget. Somewhere deep in itself, it knows that it was not always this. It knows that _it_ was a _he_ with a purpose, like its targets. It knows that purpose was to protect, and knowing that, it cannot bring itself to kill its target.

It doesn’t realize that not killing its target also means making sure any potential subtargets are safe. But it sees that there is one in danger and has an echo of what it meant to be sick in a moment that it could have stopped. The enemy (the _target’s_ enemy, not _its_ enemy, the target’s enemy is its ally) goes down.

It stows the gun in its tree and runs to its rendezvous for mission failure.

 

“The sniper was unexpectedly fast,” it lies. “It was not possible to take the sniper and the rest of the team out alone.”

“That is not unexpected, though disappointing,” the English-speaker says. The speaker nods to the guards behind it and suddenly the world is going dark again as it is shoved into the cold. It does not know why they are so forceful when it was not even fighting back.

 

It drops onto the train with another echo, like it has done this before. It observes its targets, always a car behind them, and it knows that they will not make it out alive even if it does not intervene. It sees its enemy before they do, and it knows this moment somehow. It knows that they are saved because of the echos. But when their enemy attacks and they are defenseless with no sign of salvation, it makes its move.

It exits through the top of the traincar, carefully sliding along the metal until it can reach the open wound in the side of their car. It breathes in and jumps down, grasping with its metal arm onto the opening as it swings in. The targets and their enemies freeze, giving it the opportunity to take the hideous plate the subtarget is using as a shield from the subtarget. It shoves the subtarget forward, knowing that if it can only protect one it will protect the primary target, and shoots through the subtarget to down their enemy.

It drops the plate where it stands and rushes their enemy. With the human arm it grabs the enemy, leaving the metal arm free to make its exit as it rushes towards the hole and the cold. It jumps, grasping onto the train with its metal arm as it releases their enemy into the abyss. Slowly it makes its way towards the end of the train and onto the tracks, waiting to be extracted.

 

“What _happened_ ,” the English-speaker demands.

“The arm,” it says. “It is hard to aim with this arm.”

The English-speaker looks exasperated. “Ice him,” the English-speaker says to the guards. “He is of no use to us like this.”

 

He has learned that the quieter he is, the less he has to scream.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been doing this, but he has learned some things. He does not know how, exactly, but he has learned that the less he questions, the less they punish. If he does not say what memories or thoughts he thinks he has, they will not immediately be taken from him. He knows that he will always still lose some things: a bored guard may decide to punish, he may show too much sign of personality, and they always punish immediately after he comes out of the cold. He knows that he does not know. But if he stays compliant, perhaps they will take less away from him.

The only thing he has managed to hold onto for more than a handful of missions is that he is a _he_ , not a weapon _it_ like they have tried to make him, and that he had a friend once. He remembers being touched gently. Otherwise, nothing has stayed. He does not know who he is or who they are, but he knows that he is a he and that there was a time when he did not deserve this.

He used to fight against every mission, he thinks. He doesn’t know how long he has been doing missions, but he thinks there was a time when he used to fight. Now, though, he trains others. The best he can do is cooperate so those others do not hurt for his mistakes. He has talked many of them into escaping when he has had the chance. He tells them that he can fake their deaths when they are on missions: he knows where their trackers are, he knows many deprogramming keys, and he is known to leave no one behind. They treat his “teammates” as expendable; if he kills them, no one cares because they are always producing more. So he fakes their deaths and they run.

Part of him doesn’t know why he doesn’t run himself. He justifies it by tell himself that if he suffers (does he suffer? He can’t remember), fewer will face his fate.

He is on a mission once where he thinks someone is familiar. He knows he had a friend once. Is this her? But when he remembers, his friend is always unhealthy with fair skin and yellow hair. His friend is always jagged lines, not curves and muscles. His friend is not a strong redheaded fighter. But she looks like she could have been a friend in another life.

He shoots her anyway. He does not shoot to kill, although he very easily could. But she is not the target, and he mourns for the part of him that would have had her as a friend. In his sadness of what he could have been, he cannot immediately kill her. He knows that if she does not get medical attention, she will likely die from her wound, but he won’t have to see that.

 

Things change not long after. Once he realizes that that can miss, he starts doing it more often. At first he doesn't know why he leaves witnesses, but he does. Has he ever left witnesses before? How many has he killed? It doesn't matter; after a time, minimizing collateral damage becomes as ingrained in him as killing is.

Eventually he questions why he is shooting at all.

One evening he is staked out in someone's driveway. “A dissident,” his handler had told him. “Someone to make an example of.” He didn't understand, but he had no choice to accept the mission. It was coded into him.

So he stands in this target's driveway, an agent next to him to do the talking. To tell the target that this doesn't have to go this way. When the target resists, the agent signals to the weapon. _Shoot him._

The weapon, he, hesitates. He raises his gun, a simple handgun anyone in this country can get, to the target’s chest but doesn’t fire. The agent signals again, and he flinches, angling the gun down and firing. He hits the target's groin and drops the gun.

The agent shouts a code and they run.

 

They are picked up and taken to their base, a grimy bank in the city. There the weapon is to be punished, he knows.

“Mission report,” his handler demands of him.

“I… I don't know,” he says. He doesn't. He is confused. It should have been an easy shot, but he didn't want to take it. He didn't want to kill anyone, not anymore.

“What happened.”

“I…” he cannot say anything, not when he is hit across the face, not when he feels the sear of a hot brand against his chest. He feels his tears and that is all he knows.

He doesn't know how much time passes before he hears, “wipe him.”

Hopefully things will be better this time.

 

He wakes up from the cold and is given a new assignment: a bombing.

“Maximum casualties. Hit any politician you can. We want to send a message, but we won't deny the opportunity to change a regime.”

He doesn't like the sound of that.

He is on the ground, his weapon still on his back instead of dropped by the stage where it should have been. He knows this way he will also die.

There are children around, excited, and the noise around him is a suffocating static. There weren't supposed to be children. This is an important political convention. Why are there children?

He places his weapon bookbag down as far from children as he can. He stands close to it and knows he must detonate soon.

As he presses the button, he sees a happy young couple crying together. There is a man at a podium giving a speech that moves them. He speaks about this honor, this historic moment.

It is too late not to detonate. It is active.

He tackles the couple to the ground, screaming “get down!” as he lifts his metal arm to block their heads and the bomb explodes.

 

In the end, he saves everyone he can, but it is not enough. He does not wait for this one to be wiped away. He runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can add more detail about what each event was if y'all want? The target in the driveway attack that he didn't kill was Paul Joyal, a real person whose attack is still unsolved. The attack at convention was an attack I made up for the story, but it was modeled after the 2008 DNC.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY THIS HAS TAKEN SO LONG.  
> Look, I'll be honest with you all, life got so much in the way. Classes started, and I am both a student and a TA, and then someone I love was in the hospital for a little while (she's fine now!), but I just got overwhelmed and behind on everything and have barely had time to do my own academic work, much less things for fun. :(  
> I'm sorry this took so long, and I'm sorry it's unedited. You would think for how short it is I could be bothered to edit it, but I'm kind of exhausted at the idea.  
> I promise the next update won't take as long, and the next one should be the last chapter of this!

He had moved on autopilot on his way out, but now he can run no longer. He’d ripped the tracker out of his arm and tossed it amongst the rubble and chaos, hoping they would believe him dead. Still, he knows he'll have to take apart the whole arm to be sure he won't be found.

He almost wants to be found, to be put back into use as their weapon, or maybe to be put down. Without missions, without handlers and agents and assassinations and death, he doesn't know who he is.

He looks around, wondering how far he actually ran before his body couldn't take any more. The area looks run-down, almost empty save for some ratty storefronts and old hotels. The buildings don't look unattended, but undermaintainted, like the people who work them knew better than to care anymore. He figures this is as good a place as any.

He searches for a shop that could sell less conspicuous clothing. There’s a secondhand store on the corner, where patrons can buy clothes and supplies and get help finding work. He looks down at himself. His clothes is torn in places from the explosion and his attempts to pull survivors from the wreckage, and between that, the grime, and his long hair, he thinks he passes as homeless. He has very little money, only a few bill provided to him as always with every mission _just in case_ , so he must spend it wisely, and be aware that it may be traced. He cannot let them find him.

The staff in the store look like they are trying hard not to look sympathetic. They call him _sir_ firmly, helping him find clothes that may fit. They usher him into an area with showers before he can try anything on. The shower room is small and old, but clean. When someone comes back with materials for washing, he has still not turned on a shower.

“You can use as much hot water as you like,” the boy says, taking him in by looking up and down at his still-clothed state. “Here, I know I always get freaked out when I shower somewhere new, but this one is pretty straightforward.” The boy—Alec, maybe? He can’t remember—turns on the water, then says, “oh, and you can adjust the water pressure up top on the head, too. Just twist it.”

When the boy turns the shower head, the world goes black. The harsh sound of a spray of water against the metal shower wall brings back sensations he flinches from and he sits down on the floor hard, unable to see but able to recall the sensation of water beating against his skin.

“Sir?” he hears as he sees the world in front of him again. “Sir, I won’t hurt you, you’re safe here.” He turns to see the boy crouched arm’s length away from him. “Hey, do you know where you are? Can you tell me your name, sir?”

He stops breathing and closes his eyes again. “I. Don’t know.” His voice rattles around the words. “What is your name again?” he asks the boy.

“Alastair,” he says. Not Alec.

“Gaelic?” he asks so that he can focus on something other than the memories. The boy nods. “I think I’m Scottish, too?” he says, then, “but… I can’t remember.”

The boy — Alastair — nods almost sadly. “You don’t have to remember,” he says. After a moment of consideration, he asks what he can do to help.

“Can I get a washcloth?”

“Of course, sir. Let me help you sit up, then I’ll be right back.” Alastair helps position him against the wall and is out the door without another word.

In Alastair’s absence, he has time to think. He has never known who he is. He has never known if he even _is_. He has the rattles of memories, of small companions who spoke languages he doesn’t know how he knows. He remembers what he knows is Russian, what he thinks is Portuguese or maybe Spanish. But he doesn’t know why he knows these things. He doesn’t know if anyone has ever called him by a name. He has only ever known being a thing.

He searches desperately for a memory and finds a time that he doesn’t think actually existed: a grimy alley and an angry boy, a frail woman with an accent. A name that doesn’t feel right, but he thinks was _his_ name anyway. _James_. When he tries the name on his lips, he gets a rush of memory, so sharp and large he wonders how he can hold it.

“ _Seamus,” she says. “That isn’t right?”_

_“No, ma’am” he laughs, “but it’s close. James.”_

_“Shames,” she says again, this time even closer, and the spindly boy next to her puts his head in his hands._

_“Ma,” he says, “just call him-”_

The memory cuts off as the door opens. Alastair is back with a washcloth and a large bucket.

“Seamus,” he whispers as the door clicks shut. It feels better than James.

“What was that, sir?” Alastair asks.

“Seamus,” Seamus says. “My name is Seamus.”

Alastair smiles.

 

* * *

 

Seamus watches in awe the screen in front of him. He can feel his brain stretching and filling with tension, ready to snap, but he holds it in to get every second of the scene before him. He doesn't want to miss a moment.

None of the good footage is close to the action. News crews can’t get past police and military blocking the perimeter of the battle, meaning that everything Seamus is seeing comes after the fact, a delay of shaky, low-quality phone video that is often too dark to make out much besides inhuman shapes. But even in the dark footage, a handful of colors stand out: a dirty, bog-green inhuman body that seems to be on the humans’ side, a metallic red-and-yellow flying suit that Seamus has seen on the news before, and an ostentatious red-white-blue ensemble that Seamus thinks he’s never seen.

Somewhere in him — in his past self that he tries to ignore, that he tries to pretend doesn’t exist because he can’t identify it so why bother wasting his energy on it— he is on fire. Seamus doesn’t know that outfit, that stupid fucking _shield_ , but his body does. Every part of him he doesn’t consciously control is moving to cover the man with the shield, and Seamus feels his heart rate increase and his breathing becoming panting as the metal arm whirs until —

The man gets shot out a window.

„Căpitan America este rănit,” Seamus hears from the reporter who has been narrating over the cell phone clips. _Captain America_ , he tries thinking, in English, in response to what he’s heard. _Captain America_ . It becomes a mantra to calm him down, his body vibrating with the adjustment of the metal arm, because Captain America is down. He’s hurt.   
_Steve_.

The name hits him again and again, fighting for recognition against that _stupid_ “Captain America” name until Seamus can only hear a repetition of _SteveSteveSteve_ in his head until his metal arm has gone through the television.

He doesn’t think before he’s out the door past his kitchen floorboards torn up to get his pack. He doesn’t think about the life he had established or the people who thought they knew him or that he had finally started to feel like a person three years after his escape. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows that tactical flexibility is an advantage and that he had stayed here too long anyway, but all he consciously thinks now is _Steve._

 

New York is different than he remembers (what does he remember? He can’t draw up a concrete memory, yet he knows this isn’t the same), but he still knows how it works. It feels more familiar to him than anything else has so far, and he knows that this must be where they took this body from.

He makes his way to a relatively small library, not knowing where to start otherwise, and wanders the shelves, knowing that he has always loved to read. He has nowhere to stay right now, and it’s nice to get away from the heat in such a peaceful setting. The librarians occasionally whisper to each other as they hand each other books. Parents hold their young child’s hands and walk together through the children’s section. An older woman scours the home improvement section with another half dozen books already in her arms. Seamus feels relaxed.

After weaving between the shelves and deliberately avoiding the history section, Seamus has picked up almost more books than a standard human could conceivably carry, many of which are ratty paperbacks from the fiction section. He settles into the reading area in the back corner of the library, comfortable in his weird squishy chair with his back to the wall and a table of books in front of him.

Halfway through the process of reading the first few pages of each of his fiction stack to decide what’s worth his time, one of the librarians approaches him. “Is there anything specifically you’re looking for, sir?” she asks politely, seeming genuine rather than judging him for the amount of space he has taken up with his pile of books. He makes an effort to smooth out his forehead, wrinkled in concentration.

“No, ma’am, I’m just browsing today,” Seamus says, and _oh_. After three years in Europe, his voice still sounds so much more natural when laced with Brooklyn.

She smiles at him. “Well, let me know if you need anything or when you’re ready to check out,” she says. He smiles back at her as she walks away, unsure of what to say in his strangely comfortable accent. He doesn’t want to tell her that he has no card, so no intention of checking out.

Before he has the opportunity to get invested in his reading, he’s interrupted again. “Young man,” he hears. The older woman from the home improvement section has approached him, holding even more books than before. “May I ask you something rather bluntly?” she asks him before he has time to respond to her.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, sitting up straighter in his squishy chair. He doubts anything this woman asks will be particularly offensive. She seems sweet enough, though very stern.

“Do you have a place to sleep at night?” she asks, and no, Seamus isn’t at all offended, but confused. Apparently it shows. “Do you have a home?” She nods to his one, somewhat large bag that carries all the things he needs for immediate survival.

After a moment’s hesitation, he answers. “No, ma’am, I don’t yet, but I’m working on it.” He’s only been in his destination city for a few hours and would rather not sneak into abandoned buildings during broad daylight, thank you very much.

“Military?” she asks him, and jeez, Seamus thought _something_ meant _one thing_. He doesn’t want to lie to her, for reasons he can’t explain to himself, so he just nods. Her lips purse in unhappy understanding. “Listen,” she says to him, “if you want a place to stay tonight, to get cleaned up and get a nice meal no strings attached, you can come with me.”

“Bold, but how do you know I won’t kill you?” Seamus says before he can stop himself. Great. Brooklyn apparently brings out his sass, even to nice old ladies. She just grins.

“I don’t for sure, but I like to think I know a good man when I see one,” she says, and Seamus just barely contains his bark of laughter. “Don’t laugh, son, there’s more to you than you think.” Huh.

After a short silence, Seamus stands and extends him right hand. “Thank you, ma’am,” he says as she puts her stack of books down on the table. “A night getting my feet under me sounds real nice.”

“Thought so. Patricia Quintana,” she says as she shakes his hand.

“Seamus Brenneis,” he says, pleasantly surprised by this small woman’s unapologetically strong grip. They let go.

“Nice to meet you, Seamus. Now, would you be so kind as to help me take these books to the check-out?”

“I thought this was no strings attached,” Seamus says as he hoists up her stack of books. He appreciates Patricia’s smug glare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> „Căpitan America este rănit” is "Captain America is injured." I absolutely do not speak Romanian and know the absolute bare minimum about word order, punctuation, declensions, etc., so please correct me if I'm wrong there.
> 
> First, I promise that Patricia and Seamus put whatever books they didn't check out back on the re-shelving carts or whatever this library may have had. They aren't _heathens._  
>  Second, please let me know if you see any glaring errors! I'll find them and fix them on my own eventually, but if you see something and let me know, I'll fix it sooner!  
> Third, I'm sorry if you think this work is weird. I'm trying, I really am, for it to make sense, but who even knows if it does at this point. I'll make it line up with the other one soon!

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can find me @MrsCalculation on tumblr! Comments and suggestions always welcome!


End file.
